Patient Group Minutes of Meeting, Reports and Surveys

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PPG Minutes: 3rd April 2023 18:30

Attendees

• Paul Underwood (PU) Chair
• Pam Jones (PJ) Vice-Chair
• David Portious (DP) Treasurer
• Dr Jas Bhari (JB) GP Partner
• Aija Selby (AS) Practice Manager
• Anita Patchett
• Eric Hitchcock
• Peter Curtis
• Carol Gill, Social Prescriber Link Worker

Plus 8 patient members in attendance. A sign in book was completed on arrival for fire regulations.

Apologies 

Anna Predergast (committee member), Alison Brown (Folksworth P.C.), Donna Swift (patient rep), Pam Goodwin (library)

1. Minutes of previous meeting

Minutes of previous meeting were confirmed as approved

2. Special section

Special thank you to Anita Patchett for the very kind donation to the PPG bequeathed on behalf of her late husband. PU will liaise with Anita to decide upon the equipment Anita would be happy that this money purchases and will be used for the benefit of the patients. Our condolences to Anita.

Key Speaker:

Carole Gill spoke to the meeting on her role as practice and community Social Prescriber having been in post for three years now. Two Social Prescribers currently in the practice as are Health & Wellbeing Coaches and Care Coordinators as part of the Practice personalised care team. Social Prescribers can put patients in touch with local services, support for housing issues, benefits and social activities such as clubs and weight loss support in the area. In addition to signposting, they can also support if there are barriers to achieving this, all the way to even attending with the patient if necessary. A personalized care service. Can also support relatives of those with dementia, frailty and be a support to carers. Currently Social Prescribers work with those only over 18 years of age, however they are looking towards bringing in a Social Prescriber who can work with those under 18. (Long term Personalised care NHS Plan, Peterborough / South Peterborough PCN has not yet introduced the Childrens / young person Social Prescribers into the area, although they are active in other areas)

To access the Social Prescriber, contact is by the usual channels – phone, in person to reception or Doctrin and ask for a call from the Social Prescriber. This does not need to go via the GP. Call back is usually within 10 working days. A question was asked if assistance to complete PIP (Personal Independence Payment) forms was available, however form filling assistance is not in their remit or expertise. Comments were made by a number of those attending the meeting of how superb Linda from the practice had been with this role, however Linda has now retired. Tina S had made contact with the PPG and offered her services for form filling for the over 66’s. PU and PJ to look into form filling support further for all ages and update on the PPG Facebook page accordingly. 
Carol advised that the community transport scheme was being very underutilised in Yaxley. Information will be sought and posted on the PPG FB page.

3. Matters arising from minutes 

Election of secretary – no volunteers came forward so remains open position

The meeting closed 19.20pm

4. Items for discussion / correspondence

a)    Pharmacy – PU read email from Rowlands HO apologising again for the lower than desired level of service. Comments in the meeting included inferior counter service and overall service level over past 5 years. PU and PJ have a meeting with Rowlands Management on Monday 17th April 2023 to discuss and seek answers. We will update on PPG FB page and at next PPG meeting.

b)    Facebook update – continues to grow. Compliments from the meeting about proactivity and support on the page.

c)    Folksworth and Washingley PC – fundraising coffee morning taking place and hope to raise around £100 for the PPG. Clinicians in the practice have compiled a comprehensive list of equipment in priority order and AS has supplied this with links to the items. PJ will post to PPG FB page.

d)    Survey – reminder to complete this before Friday 7th April 2023. Can be completed online or paper copies are available in the practice. This is for patients to have their say in the services offered, be it complimentary or suggestions for improvements, all are welcome.

e)    Practice report – AS outlined the concerns/complaints process. Can be made by phone, in person to reception, in writing, via Doctrin, or practice website online.

The practice aims to issue complaint acknowledgement within 3 working days and fully investigate and provide response in 28 days
More complex complaints issues may take longer as a number of GPs may have to be involved. If the investigation is likely to exceed 28 working days, the Practice always write to the patient explaining the reasons for that, before the 28 working days have passed. 
JB explained Significant Event and Complaint (SE&C) Review process. The Practice holds quarterly meeting for the entire practice team, where complaints, concerns and significant events are discussed and learning shared. The Practice tries to alternate days of the week that these are held to ensure variety of staff are able to attend. Everyone in the Practice receives copies of the SE&C minutes and have to confirm they have read them. 

AS provided data on past 12 months (1st April 2022 to 31st March 2023). Approximately 18,750 registered patients. 29 complaints. 26 concerns. 37 significant events (including non-clinical issues – e.g. Health & Safety). 1,480 compliments. Congratulations to the Practice for the excellent number of compliments recorded.
A question was asked about the training afternoons and what occurred during those. AS responded that there are a significant number of mandatory training sessions that need to be completed and not all can be carried out online. The training afternoons enable face to face training sessions for these issues.

f)    Matters notified by patients; Prescriptions – query over blister packs of 28 tablets monthly, when most months have 30 or 31 days. JB & AS confirmed the repeat prescriptions for those items are completed every 28 days. A subsequent question about anyone working away for a period of time – JB & AS advised that provided the informed the practice BEFORE the prescription was issued, once approved, it would be held in the “cloud” system and could be drawn down and dispensed by any pharmacy in England by use of your NHS number. Question around obtaining more than one month of items would be dependent upon the medication as some items cannot be issued in bulk. This would be assessed on a case by case basis. Contact the Clinical Pharmacist within the practice via reception or Doctrin for guidance.

g)    Doctrin – AS gave an overview for the reasoning behind Doctrin only being available to complete during working hours. This is a Lakeside wide policy and has been changed to allow safer working practices. JB confirmed that while we appreciate this may be a minor inconvenience for some, it ensures that inappropriate/unsafe requests are not received out of hours, which continued to happen despite warnings on the page not to do so.This makes the risk of harm too great, so Doctrin is available for submission of new cases from 8.00am to 6.00pm weekdays. It is not available out of those hours, weekends, bank holidays or training afternoons. NHS 111 service covers those times.

h)    Complaints procedure – addressed in practice report.

i)    Services within the practice. A question was asked about whether Physiotherapy was available within the practice. AS advised the practice has First Contact Practitioner (FCP) Muscular-Skeletal Specialists on site most days, but do not have a Physiotherapist. However, referrals can be made by clinicians as required. This led to seeking guidance on other services available and AS advised to seek confirmation from the practice if any service patients require is available in house.
Dermatology was referenced as it did show on the Lakeside Group central website. AS confirmed that some doctors do have dermatology as their specialist interest here at Yaxley, but there is no specific dermatology clinic on site.

5. Any other business

Next meeting topic sought and suggestion of demonstration of defibrillators and of CPR would be much appreciated. PU to seek Gemma from Gemma’s Hearts to attend for this. 

Next Meeting

3rd July 2023

Meeting closed at 19:36